Feminine Mystique
by BloodyCrystal
Summary: Based on the LJ 1sentence community. A study of kunoichi, their lifestyles and the things that they do.


**BloodyCrystal:** All right, this is my latest one-shot based off of Live Journal's 50sentence community, this time it's the delta set. If anyone's curious about who's speaking, let me know and I'll send a list to you, but otherwise, please use your imagination.

Oh, and for **35. Roses**, a light pink rose symbolizes admiration, and a pale pink rose symbolizes friendship.

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**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or the characters of said manga/anime in any way, shape, or form. The idea for this comes from the LJ **50sentence** community; go check them out.

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**1. Air**

She loved the sensation of flying through the air, and Soushouryuu was just the start of her flying experiments.

**2. Apples**

The apple is ripe and juicy, and Temari feels a fleeting jealousy that Suna lacks such fruit.

**3. Beginning**

In the beginning, they neither knew nor suspected what was coming; in the end, it was too late for most.

**4. Bugs**

It took a while to get used to the bugs that lived in her husband and would live in any children she had, but she could never imagine him without the bugs that helped him on his missions.

**5. Coffee**

Five drops of coffee dotted her kimono, but no tears dripped down her face as she stared at the man she had married and who had become such an ambitious monster for the sake of the title Kazekage.

**6. Dark**

The world they live in is dark, and full of shame and death and degradation, but true kunoichi always pull through, no matter what load they bear.

**7. Despair**

It is easy to fall prey to dark emotions in dark times, and a kunoichi's emotional stability can depend on something as small (or large) as the survival of a teammate; his death plunges her into the dark pit of "if only's."

**8. Doors**

Where one door closes, another is supposed to open, but she sees no route to success save the one that is now gone with a single too-accurate kunai.

**9. Drink**

Sake is her drink of choice, but Tsunade never has a drink before or during burial services.

**10. Duty**

She missed Asuma so much, but they had both known that as ninja their allegiance to Konoha came first.

**11. Earth**

She looked straight at him, calm and unmovable, and allowed some of her sympathy to and concern for him to show even as she aimed her punch for his face.

**12. End**

The end came swiftly, and her only regret was that she had seen it coming and done nothing to prevent what her older son was becoming.

**13. Fall**

She felt her life ebb with the falling leaves, and hoped in vain that she would live long enough to see her daughter become the kunoichi she would become.

**14. Fire**

She had an indomitable spirit and a fiery temper that worked well in Suna but was right at home in Konoha.

**15. Flexible**

Hanabi had considered herself adaptable, but feeling cheated when Neji became Clan Head told her how much farther she had yet to go.

**16. Flying**

She takes off over the edge of the cliff, feeling the wind buffet her, and as she grabs the almost lost scroll, she reflects on how terrifying freefall truly is.

**17. Food**

After the first few missions, she learned to pack extra food, because otherwise Sensei would never get enough nutrients, Obito would never be full, and Kakashi would never eat.

**18. Foot**

She looked down, curious, but her foot was so much smaller than the footprint that the Yondaime had left as he walked past.

**19. Grave**

She stood silently before his grave, eyes shaded with sorrow behind her mask, before jumping off to revenge her lover's death with the lives of those who were invading their village.

**20. Green**

Konoha is green again, at last recovering from dreadful scars, and she thinks that she, too, can perhaps become whole again.

**21. Head**

She has always thought things through, and that is why it kills her to teach civilian abilities to young girls hoping to be kunoichi; most of them will use those skills on seduction missions that they will take on when they are too young, too naïve, for that sort of thing.

**22. Hollow**

There used to be something inside of her, but now she is all killing intent and focused intensity.

**23. Honor**

The honor of Konoha, the honor of the Hyuuga, the honor of herself and her loved ones; when they conflict, where should she stand?

**24. Hope**

Hope is foreign in the world of ninja, but the deaths of more Akatsuki members might just signal the end of a too-long war.

**25. Light**

The lantern burns brightly, and a wicked smile crosses her face as she smashes it against the wooden walls; she needed something to cover her tracks.

**26. Lost**

She has failed and she knows it, and she can only think that dying will be better than living in the hell that is life as a jinchuuriki, and she knows that she lost even before she began to fight these two.

**27. Metal**

She did nothing fancy, nothing that only a Clan could do, but she was the only Weapons Mistress of Konoha.

**28. New**

They were the new generation, as yet unsullied, and they would lead their village to prominence.

**29. Old**

They were the old guard, covered in the dirt and grime of past missions, and they hoped to live long enough to see what the new powerhouses would accomplish.

**30. Peace**

Peace is an odd thing, Temari reflects, but perhaps it is time to stop fighting and killing and dying and give it a shot.

**31. Poison**

She calmly capped off the lid of her latest brew, trying not to think of how vicious this particular poison would be.

**Or:**

She watched them, unknowing fools who harbored the defenseless-looking spy that would be their demise.

**32. Pretty**

She was a medic who had seen her teammate desert Konoha, but she still found beauty in the world around her.

**33. Rain**

She closed her eyes, letting the rain drip down her hair and face, cleansing her of the stench of death.

**34. Regret**

There could be no regret, no looking back, in their profession, but the lack of strength when it was most needed was a regret that she would never be able to put behind her.

**35. Roses**

You could say so many things depending on the type of rose you gave, and Ino tried not laugh her head off when she gave each member of the Konoha 11 two pink roses, one light and the other pale.

**36. Secret**

They met when they could, which wasn't often, and they weren't together for long when they met, but Shizune found it exhilarating to have a lover whom she shouldn't love.

**37. Snakes**

Anko was no longer his apprentice, but the use of snake techniques was too deeply ingrained for her to just throw it away without a second thought.

**38. Snow**

The snow clung to her and her dogs, weighing them down, but she was going to make it over the pass before it closed no matter what; Konoha depended on the scroll she had "retrieved" from the Land of Ice.

**39. Solid**

Sometimes, when she left another's mind, it was hard to tell what was real and what was her, but the feeling of her teammates watching her, waiting for her, always brought her back to ground.

**40. Spring**

She watched her daughter become a healer, melting wounds, and felt a strange pride for the child she could never understand.

**41. Stable**

She had never had anyone be an anchor for her, but now she was often the pillar for her two teammates, and she had to be so careful that neither of them realized how close she was to cracking.

**42. Strange**

She had always been considered a "weird one," but that no longer stopped her from doing what she needed to.

**43. Summer**

The summer heralded war, and flowers for graves, and more and more often she watched her daughter give away free flowers to friends and colleagues who trekked to the Memorial.

**44. Taboo**

It was forbidden to show emotions if one was a ninja, but kunoichi often had to fake admiration or sexual appreciation when on a "kunoichi" mission.

**45. Ugly**

Beauty wasn't something to care about, but when someone called her ugly, it still hurt.

**46. War**

Kunoichi were always at war, sometimes to prove themselves, often against their bodies, always to survive.

**47. Water**

She flowed, easily moving with her opponents and turning their attacks against them, looking so like the water she modeled herself after.

**48. Welcome**

She smiled as she poured her husband of three years tea, welcoming him; he would be dead of poison after the first sip, and her too-long mission would finally end.

**49. Winter**

Winter was the season of ruin, so it was only fitting that her "worthless" first child be born and her own life would end during the time of death.

**50. Wood**

She had always known that kunoichi went on seduction missions, so she made it a priority to have a mindset that would allow her to take on anything without breaking like so many did.


End file.
